Anyone wrongly charged with a serious crime should be ultra-eager to get into a court and argue their innocence. Instead, Dotcom has wasted millions trying to avoid doing so.

So he has resorted to a final desperation measure, namely to spend millions attempting to buy a change of government, which he hopes will override a court-backed extradition order, an inevitable outcome once he’s used up all of his legal ploys.

He’s wasting his money as no government will do that, regardless of any undertakings from the soul-selling abysmal no-hopers he has garnered together to fund as a political party. If anything, his efforts will hugely harm the Opposition cause in Balkanising and confusing its message, thus presenting an electoral option with, on one side, a rabble of dissimilar, mutually antagonistic parties, all with unpopular leaders and wildly different messages, set against a stable governing party with the most popular leader in our history.

Can anyone really think that a Government of Cunliffe, Norman, Turei, Peters, Harawira, Harre and Dotcom would be stable.

This is the fifth party Dotcom’s new leader, Laila Harre, has belonged to, which speaks volumes. Laila will always be remembered for the funniest political gaffe in our history when she explained her 2002 defeat by lamenting on television that voters had voted with their heads rather than their hearts.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2014 at 10:00 am and is filed under NZ Politics.
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“Can anyone really think that a Government of Cunliffe, Norman, Turei, Peters, Harawira, Harre and Dotcom would be stable.”

As alloytoo above notes this is a very good question. One I have been wondering about for a long time. I want to go further. Having stable government is more important for the well being of the country than whether or not john key or Cunliffe is the prime minister. There are very serious consequences to instability. Business confidence would immediately suffer. With a lack of business confidence goes higher unemployment. The cycle become vicious.

Cunliffe so far has not had to explain how he would ever deliver stable government. I asked Tim Barnett a few days ago. In person and then followed up with an email. Quite simply they have no answer

Cunliffe missed an opportunity to explain how a Labour-greens government would work. Instead he gave them a brush off and said Labour will be campaigning for itself. That left people confused. Cunliffe gave one of his cheesy grins and said all will be revealed after the election. Meanwhile the Greens started measuring the curtains and have a spat amongst themselves about who will be Deputy PM. Enter stage left KDC and his hired politicians. They have taken some votes from the Greens. But Marta Harre is deadly dull unlike the man who has hired her. You just could not write this script. National meanwhile is a credible Government with a very popular leader.

MANA will have first, third and fourth positions on the combined Internet MANA list. Mr Harawira will be first on the list and Ms Harré second.https://internet.org.nz/news/44

But in any post-election split, Harawira will hold his Electorate Seat as he will legally be designated a MANA Party member on the voting paper, Electorate half.

Laila Harré in List Member place will be a legal problem.
The seat will be Internet on the umbrella Party List, but there will be no indication from a united Internet MANA Party Vote as to allegiance to either individual party.

The latest Herald-DigiPoll results gave 0.7% for MANA, and 0.2% for Internet, giving MANA the greater entitlement, but such individual indication will not be available in the final Party Vote on September 20.

The Electoral Commission has no answer to deciding the dispersal of MANA Internet List Seats in a split, so will hand the whole mess back to the Clerk of Parliament, who will likely have no better idea as to what should be done either

KDC has caused immense damage to the left. It’s highly likely a lot of Labour voters will stay home as a direct result. They may want Labour, but there are few people who seriously think this gaggle of unlikely chancers would make for a better New Zealand than the one we have now.

Hating on Key is not a credible election manifesto any more than hating on Clark was.

IMHO one of the bigger issues for Cun*liffe and the GIMPs is lack of a credible leader, someone capable of actually holding the GIMPs together.
If Cun*liffe was rating at 30% or so then yeah theh might have a sniff of a chance, at 11% not a snowballs chance in hell.
The popularity (or lack thereof) poll is a self fulfilling prophecy, he isnt likeable so isnt popular so isnt credible.

>Can anyone really think that a Government of Cunliffe, Norman, Turei, Peters, Harawira, Harre and Dotcom would be stable

They’ll probably also need the Maori Party on board.

ABCs hate Cunliffe.
Cunliffe hates the ABCs.
Curran hates Cunliffe, but likes Dotcom.
Maori hate Harawira.
Harawira hates Maori.
Peters hates the Greens.
Greens probably not so hot on Peters either.
The Greens hate coal miners, but Labour love coal miners since the West Coast is Labour Party heritage.
Harre used to hate Labour, but recently she loved the Greens, but now she’ll love anyone she’s paid to love.
The Greens hate Taranaki, while Cunliffe wants to create jobs in Taranaki.
Harawira loves Dotcom, but only because Dotcom is paying him.
Dotcom hates anyone who doesn’t do as they’re told. Which, sooner or later, is all of us.
Jones hated the Greens. But that’s okay since he is gone now.
The Greens don’t agree with Asian-bashing from Labour or Peters, even tho Norman was bashing Chinese last year.
Mallard hates everyone. But that is because he is a very angry man.
Labour don’t agree with the Greens carbon dioxide tax.
Kelvin Davis, Goff, and Hipkins all hate Harawira, Dotcom, and Harre.
Cunliffe hates Davis, Goff, and Hipkins for tweeting without his permission.
Cunliffe loves his anonymous donors, but we don’t know who they are.

Minus: in the absence of waka jumping laws, once an MP, always an MP. NZ First could expel Brendan Horan from its caucus, but not from Parliament.

This is one of the many reasons why the Internet/Mana deal is so shameful. It is using the coat-tail rule to get an IP member into Parliament, in the full knowledge that the vehicle for their election — the combined IP/Mana Party — will be dissolved soon after the election.

Can anyone really think that a Government of Cunliffe, Norman, Turei, Peters, Harawira, Harre and Dotcom would be stable.

I too think Internet/Mana is a joke (and Mana has lost it’s, well, Mana making it’s name a sad irony).

But I don’t think it follows a coalition they are in with would be unstable – that Dotcom has a very specific objective makes it easy to keep him happy and compliant, his price is obvious. As long as Harre stays bought and paid for (everyone says she’s a capable poltiico so I expect that should be true for at least a term) no instability from them should be expected.

It’s Turei, Peters and Harawira that would make it unstable and I don’t think Cunliffe is convincing as someone who can marshall disparate interests. Peters price is probably affordable (knighthood and/or ambassador I should think) leaving Turei and Harawira the core problems of a broad alliance.

In the end it doesn’t matter how accurately one fantasizes over the issue, it seems convincing from polling that the broader public isn’t interested in the risk, we don’t seem likely to have the spectacle of such an alliance seriously on offer.

National currently has almost enough votes to pass legislation and has not had to rely on all three support partners (UF, ACT and the Maori Party) to pass a law (different in the last few weeks with no ACT member).

But Labour would probably need to get itself, the Greens, NZ First, Mana and the IP to agree on individual measures. The only thing this group agree on is that they hate National and unfortunately for them, that isn’t really the basis for forming a government.

National has to keep pointing out what the reality of a Labour GIMP Government would be.

minus – As far as I can see, if the parties split, the list MP’s of both parties would stay in place, and any vacancies would be filled from the combined list as filed before the election. Whether the next person chooses to enter Parliament or ‘passes’ is over to the individual. If the person ‘passes’ he or she is off the list completely. There seems to be nothing that requires list MP’s to leave Parliament if their parties collapse. This leaves the matter of the leader(s), and the Speaker and Clerk could have a headache here. Possibly if the party ‘splits’ into two, but each one has over 500 members, then there may be a second leader, ie another suite of rooms and leader’s allowance.

IMO a party should have at least 3 MP’s before claiming leader’s allowances and perks.

georgebolwing – This is one of the many reasons why the Internet/Mana deal is so shameful. It is using the coat-tail rule to get an IP member into Parliament, in the full knowledge that the vehicle for their election — the combined IP/Mana Party — will be dissolved soon after the election.
and peterwn

So Harawira will legally be able to stay MANA – that will be on the voting paper.
Harré will try to stay as Internet or Independent or whatever.
But unlike Horan who was distinctly New Zealand First, and they had expelled him, Harré could actually be there by a majority of MANA voters, who may contest her position.
She will be second on the umbrella party list, but if it caves in, who knows whether the seat is MANA’s or indeed Internet’s – no one!
Horan was uncontested.
Harré position could be claimed by both a separate MANA or independent Internet, but the combined party vote will provide no evidence for a court decision.

Anyone wrongly charged with a serious crime should be ultra-eager to get into a court and argue their innocence.

Unless one has reservations about how level the playing field would be.
(for the record – I’m not a big fan of Dotcom, but he is, perhaps deservedly so, on the “blacklist” of a very powerful and influential industry)

In this case Bob Jones is completely wrong, and he probably knows it. If I were accused in the US on probably bogus but very politically inspired charges on the basis of evidence that won’t be revealed to the accused, I would think that the very worst thing you could do would be to willingly go to court.

You’ll immediately be faced with a prospect of the rest of your life in jail with no prospect for release and no opportunity for a decent defense because all of your assets are sequestered. You’ll then be offered a “reasonable” deal, plead guilty to X, Y, and Z and get only 15-20 years. Think carefully of the options. Ask people like Conrad Black how this works, when the Feds decide to target you you are already effectively guilty.

I loathe KDC (except he’s been a wonderful source of amusement as the left for some reason have fallen over themselves to get his money, more fools them, but also more fool of KDC thinking that they might do anything for him once that have the said money) but I don’t believe he has a snowballs chance of a fair trial in the USA. I also think it is likely that the money laundering etc charges will ultimately be dropped in the US as they are only there to gain his extradition, copyright offenses don’t make him eligible for extradition.

KDC should be tried here in New Zealand. I do not know why we constantly have to dance to the USA’s demands. It was not just american’s that were using his shonky site – and there is no reason why we cannot hold KDC responsible for that here – and show the world we are not yanky puppets/muppets. A conviction here is a lot more likely than one that is fraught with on-going issues of incorrect procedure etc.

If he was so important to them, they should have stuck by the bloody rules. If he gets off the conviction, it will most likely be to their over zealous and corrupt administration of the investigation.

His charges should be dropped and re-laid under New Zealand law, where the correct process can be adhered to from the beginning, where extradition is not required and therefore can’t fail, and where the correct process can be followed, and not taint the process that could lead to a fail.

minus – “So Harawira will legally be able to stay MANA – that will be on the voting paper.”

If that is so, how the hell can Internet or InternetMana coat-tail in on Hone’s electorate seat? I thought at least Internet-Mana was going to be on the TTT voting form. Is this just a blatant lefty rort with no legal basis, or is MMP really the dog that many people always said it was?

“Can anyone really think that a Government of Cunliffe, Norman, Turei, Peters, Harawira, Harre and Dotcom would be stable.”

Nope – that is what is so great about that government forming. It will get rid of NZ’s most socialist national party leader since Rob Muldoon, and it will guarantee his successor a job as prime minister within 3 years. The only bad thing that could happen there is if Steven Joyce was that successor.

“should be ultra-eager to get into a court and argue their innocence.” – When that charge is copyright abuse, and that court is in America I would rather take as many steps as possible to avoid going there.

Forget the political parties Laila Harre has been in and out of in her career. She has been in and out of several union related roles since she was booted out of government as well. She is clearly a one man band. I give them no chance whatsoever of being around by the end of the year.